


If there's one memory I don't want to lose

by smaragdbird



Series: Counting [3]
Category: Marvel (Movies), Spider-Man (Movieverse), X-Men (Movies)
Genre: Child Abuse, Friendship, Growing Up, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-13
Updated: 2012-05-13
Packaged: 2017-11-05 07:39:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/403970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smaragdbird/pseuds/smaragdbird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Warren has tokens of a lifetime, not all of them are physical.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If there's one memory I don't want to lose

A white dove in form of a stuffed animal was his mother’s present for his first birthday. Warren, of course, doesn’t remember it but he remembers the dove. He called it ‘Winston’ and never let go of it even when its coat began to rub off. He doesn’t even know when he began to call it Winston or why since there was no one in their family or friends with that name.

Nearly every photo of his first six years shows him with Winston tightly clutched to his chest. Then he gave it to his mum when she had to go to the hospital and he didn’t see either of them ever again.

 

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

 

Two tickets to an airshow are his dad’s present for his seventh birthday. His dad goes with him and for the first time since his mum and Winston left (“Died, she died, Warren” which Warren stubbornly refuses to say because no matter what his dad calls it they’re still not coming back) his dad laughs again. The pilots do really cool stuff with their planes and afterwards Warren asks:

“Can I fly, too?”

“When you’re grown up.” His dad answers and ruffles his hair.

“Can I fly pirouettes then?”

“You are my son, Warren. There’s nothing you can’t do.” His dad tells him proudly and Warren believes it.

 

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

 

A kick in the shin, a picture of a stick figure angel and a blush are the first things Harry gives him on their second day in primary school. The kick in the shin and the picture come first and the blush later when Harry explains that the angel in the picture is supposed to be Warren “because you look just like one.”

Warren likes Harry, who has no mum either and can draw really good and he knows how to make cookie dough and spaghettis with red sauce.

When they aren’t doing their homework (Warren helps Harry with the math and science stuff that Harry isn’t so good with) they plan their journey around the world once Warren is a pilot. A big map hangs on one wall in Warren’s room covered with strings and dots for routes and places they want to see-

Johnny Storm thinks they’re stupid but Warren thinks that Johnny is stupid because he’s only interested in flying into space when space is cold, boring and empty save for a few rocks and a couple fireballs.

 

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

 

After his wings emerge and he has to leave New York for the labs on Alcatraz, Warren puts an old photo of Winston, the tickets to the airshow, Harry’s picture and their map into one box and keeps it in his hands for the whole flight from one ocean to another

They’re his tokens of a life he will never have again.

 

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

 

His first kiss is with Evangeline. He meets her in an internet chatroom, his only contact to the outside world, away from the countless tests that ought to determine why he has two big wings growing out of his back and how to make them vanish permanently.

They chat for over a year, she tells him all the little, every day things that make her life and are missing from his, until she asks for a date.

Warren doesn’t return her messages and mails for three days after that. He hasn’t told her what he is and while the internet tells him that there’s nothing wrong with him (or everything depending on the page) most days he feels like a monster.

When he picks up the communication again, she doesn’t mention a date for some time until she asks again. After the sixth time he gives in, breaks out and flies all the way to Louisiana to see her.

“Warren?”

“Evangeline?”

“Yes, is that why you didn’t want to see me?” She points at his back. When he’s wearing his coat it looks like he has a hunchback.

“Yes,” He doesn’t blush because of shame but because he lied to her. Evangeline is small and dark and the most beautiful girl he has ever seen. She carefully puts her hands on his shoulders and kisses him. It’s light and sweet and like his own version of the Beauty and the Beast tale only that in real life kisses don’t turn Beasts into princes and love doesn’t change anything at all.

They’re holding hands and laugh when it begins to rain and trade more innocent kisses. In a fairytale people live happily ever after, in real life the Beauty returns to her parents and the Beast flies back to the labyrinth that his father build to hide the abomination of a son he has, forever.

Warren’s father is disappointed, takes his computer and with it Warren’s only connection to Evangeline and Harry and puts him into a room Warren can’t break out of.

 

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

 

Rose gives him freedom. Dr. Rosemund Frost is one of the scientists that work for his father to find a way to cure him. She is bluntly honestly with him, tells him when a test is going to hurt and when he was going to feel sick afterwards.

She also lets him out every other night; lets him fly in the safety of darkness, time and space to stretch his wings, to do what felt natural and right to do.

“You don’t need a cure, birdbrain.” She tells him one night.

“I’m not human. I can’t wear normal clothes. I can’t have a relationship like everyone else.” Warren complains: “I can’t be the son my father needs.”

“Poor birdbrain,” Rose rolls her eyes: “I saw I boy who died from the burns he had because he could set fires but not control them. A man went insane from the emotions of other people that he couldn’t keep out. There was a girl who instantly killed everyone she touched. Twins who will never have a normal life because they were born with gills instead of lungs. They need a cure. You, birdbrain, you need acceptance and tolerance and a thicker skin to withstand all the ugly things life will throw at you.”

 

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

 

Freedom is impossible to be put into a box and keep it there as a token and neither is love. And Warren knows that he loves Tony and that Tony loves him. Warren is seventeen. Tony is thirty-seven and it’s not a fairytale romance. It’s real and hard and it hurts more often than not.

Dr. Anthony Morgan is one of Warren’s father’s employees, a scientist, efficient and indifferent to the test subject.

Tony takes Warren to empty labs and sleeping quarters or seeks permission to take him to the shore. Tony holds him close and kisses the puncture marks and bruises the needles and machines have left on the skin. Tony laughs with him, and kisses him and sleeps with him. He whispers promises into Warren’s skin. He calls Warren beautiful and carefully touches his wings.

Dr. Anthony Morgan’s goal is to make Warren’s wings go away. Warren knows why he does it: Dr. Anthony Morgan is not an anti-mutant racist but he’s divorced and has two little boys and Warren’s father pays very well.

Tony makes Warren believe that there’s only him.

Of course these things never end well. There are no happy endings for monsters in basements. Warren’s father finds out about them and Tony leaves Warren behind on a rock in the sea with only a handful of letters pressed to his chest.

 

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

 

Jimmy is the first other mutant Warren ever meets. He’s twelve like Warren was when his mutation emerged. It’s weird, being with Jimmy because when he’s with Jimmy he’s no mutant, has no wings and his bones feel oddly heavy.

If he could he would put Jimmy into the box under his bed to keep him safe. Legally Jimmy is his brother because that was the only way for his father to keep him here but he becomes Warren’s little brother, too. They play basketball and football and play pranks on the lab assistants and doctors and Warren, who thought he would never smile again since Tony left, laughs more than he has since coming to Alcatraz.

There are bad times, too, when they yell at each other, when Jimmy is homesick for the foster home he grew up in, when the scientists have drawn so much blood from him that Jimmy’s lips are blue and he’s shivering, when Jimmy screamed for Warren when they drew bone marrow from his spine but wouldn’t let Warren to him.

When Warren leaves, he leaves the little box under his bed and Jimmy behind without saying goodbye.

 

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

 

Bobby gives him his name: Angel because of his wings and because, Bobby adds with a blush, because of his beauty. Warren doesn’t feel beautiful. He feels sick and tired and he’s scared. He wants to go home but he doesn’t know where home is. Before he came to the mansion he flew to Harry but Harry died a year ago and his father never saw fit to tell him that.

A new name is fitting for a new life, Warren thinks, because whatever happens he won’t go back to Alcatraz.

 

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

 

He does, of course, to save those he loves and Alcatraz gives him grief in return. One second he’s flying, with his father in his arms and hopes that the X-Men will save Jimmy, and in the next he feels a sharp sting and suddenly he’s falling.

He doesn’t remember the fall itself or the impact but he remembers lying on the pavement, feeling oddly heavy and numb, and he sees his father next to him, staring at him with open, dead eyes.

People are screaming around them.

 

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

 

John gives him strength. He’s a mutant who fought with Magneto, who’s proud to be what he is and enjoys his powers. Angel would like to say that he’s evil but he really isn’t. He’s just violent. Like his power. Maybe the two are linked but that would mean that Bobby is cold and Angel doesn’t want to believe that. During the days they both spend in the infirmary, Warren for his broken bones and John because of his concussion, they have nothing else to do but talk and Warren figures that he finds John just as fascinating as John finds him.

As unlikely as it seems, he and John become friends. At least what Angel would call a friend from experience. The last friend he had was Harry and that was ten years ago. They share snippets from their lives and try to make each other laugh behind Dr. McCoy’s back when he comes down to treat them and monitor their progress.

John actually requests to stay in the infirmary as long as Angel is there even though he’s healed enough to move up to his own room.

 

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

 

His name isn’t the only thing Bobby gives him. He gives Angel his smiles too, but they are only momentary smiles and his glances are only almost focussing on Angel’s face. There’s always someone else; John, Rogue, Kitty; who reminds Angel that Bobby is not a fairytale prince.

He’s friendly and his smiles make Angel’s heart beat faster but John tells him flat out to forget it.  
Unrequited love, Angel discovers, stings no less than heartbreak.

John tells him not to worry since most people get over Bobby as easily as Bobby gets over them.

Angel doesn’t ask if that includes John or not.

 

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

 

Harry gives Angel an atlas. Eventually Angel tries to find out what happened to Harry. Through Johnny Storm he finds Peter Parker, apparently Harry’s best friend, who gives him a look somewhere between sad and guilty when he gives him a box full with things Harry wanted him to have. When he sees the box, Angel feels happy for a moment that despite ten years of silence, Harry didn’t forget him. There’s an atlas full of post-it notes that detail their planned journey around the world.

Harry left him his sketchbooks as well and a letter where he explains everything and asks Angel not to be hung up on the past.

Angel buys a new map and tries to recreate their old one as well as he can. Maybe he is hung up on the past but Harry was his first friend and Angel wants something to remember him by. Everything else he ever cherished was destroyed on Alcatraz but Angel wants something tangible to remember that Warren Worthington’s life wasn’t only pain and loneliness.

He takes his mother’s old jewellery box and puts into it the oldest family photo he can find among his father’s things in New York, online he finds photos of Dr. Frost and of Tony, which he prints out and puts into the box together with Harry’s art materials and a small, white porcelain dove that was Jimmy’s last birthday present. He tries to make a picture of Evangeline but other than Harry he isn’t an artist and instead puts a DVD inside of an old, European version of the Beauty and the Beast fairytale that doesn’t end well.

He closes the lower drawer, opens the top one and puts one of his feathers into it.

It’s time for Angel to find his own tokens.


End file.
